Week 7 Coverage!

Hi there! As you've probably noticed, there weren't too many matches played last week. That leaves predictions with less solid content to work with, so I decided to do some aftermath from the few amazing and wonderful matches that got played. After the aftermaths(!) we've got some preds for week 7 too.

-Bacillus

Week 6 Aftermath

by Bacillus

New Team - BiPotent

NS_Eclipse

Bi-Potent marines, New Team aliens

New Team gets Eclipse hive. The British Bi-Potent open with a 2 man capping team to T-Junc and relatively slow progressing basebuilder/1 SG through alpha push. Arj manages to skulk into base while the pressure squad is capping alpha and slows down the push even further. As a result the SG doesn't really get to pressure until 2:50, while aliens the two alien res peaks are already running at 40+ res. To add up to the injury, the p-sub survives the pressure and the whole 5 marine team dies in the process.

Soon after the p-sub massacre, Pira goes fade and Rabbit drops the 2nd hive. The Bi-Potent are still unable to harm the alien economy and they eventually get overrun by countless lifeforms, despite the relatively early AA they had. New Team Sails into a victory despite the awkward AA takedown attempt at 6:40.

New Team marines, Bi-Potent aliens

Bi-Potent get CC hive. New Team opens with an aggressive 2 shotgun push into P-Sub while also securing the base with a pack of mines. The British leave P-Sub uncapped and only take Eclipse node. In response to empty P-Sub, marines walk into CC and manage to gun down the main hive node before getting overrun by skulks.

New Team goes for fast MT and proceed to kill the lerk and alien RT in Eclipse hive right before the 4 minute mark. Meanwhile Bi-Potent's Howdeh has been skulking down total of 5 marines and hits the 50 res mark at 5 minutes. His fade causes some havoc, but critically fails to defend the growing Eclipse hive a little after 8 minutes. New Team get a PG at Eclipse siege area and proceed to shotgun down the hive. From that point on the match clearly turns into New Team's favour and the CC hive falls to a siege a short while later.

While the low econ opening by Bi-Potent definitely helped, I have to give credit to Arj for managing MT first in a map that sometimes ends up starving the commanders. Pira's consistent marine play also deserves a mention.

NS_Orbital

Bi-Potent marines, New Team aliens

New Team has Generator hive. Once again Bi-Potent open with a relatively slow one SG pressure. The push goes down at Big Room node a little after 1:30 without causing notable damage.

The marines keep on capping hangar side, but New Team keeps them from obtaining a stable node count. A little after 3 minutes the Bi-Potent make another push to big room. This time the nodes goes down, but they are forced to beacon and lose obs and most of the hangar nodes in the process, leaving them at a "Too little, too late" sort of situation. Without any map control or proper upgrades, the marines are unable to fight outside their base and New Team proceeds to cap nodes and 2nd hive. The hive and SCs go up around 8 minutes and the marines fall soon after that.

New Team marines, Bi-Potent aliens

Bi-Potent get obs hive. New Team open with another aggressive 2 SG pressure and manage to take both planted alien nodes down before 1:40 in game time. Notably they also manage to take out one hidden MC in port corridor.

After the initial pressure, New Team falls back for their own nodes and manage to tech up to 1/1 upgrades before the 6:30 fade. New team shortly follows with MT tech and manages to gain huge map control. With 6-8 nodes they keep shotgun pressuring the obs hive until it goes down, sealing the 4-0.

2Ram - Team Pol

NS_Eclipse

Team Pol marines, 2Ram aliens

2Ram gets Eclipse hive. They proceed to baserush with 2 skulks, which get fended off without too much convenience. With the 2 skulks gone, Team Pol gains decent map control and RT count on maint side. Using the map control they manage to sneak a shotgun into CC hive node without much resistance. The node goes down at 1:40.

Sloppy node biting allows the Poles to stay at healthy 4-5 node situation through the whole round and after a while aliens lose their second node at P-Sub. Despite the node casualties, aliens drop CC hive at 5:30. Marines respond with a PG between South Loop and P-Sub. From the PG position the Poles keep on marching into CC hive, slowly wiggling down the hive HP in a constant skirmish chaos around the hive area. During the Skirmish, aliens lose their lifeforms and eventually the hive goes down. From that point on it's all downhill for the aliens and Team Pol secure their marine win.

The most notable factor on the round was how little damage 2Ram did to Maint side nodes. The constant res stream and little investment in maintaining the economy allowed Team Pol to flood the alien targets with Lemmings persistence. Eventually that was too much for the aliens to hold.

2Ram marines, Team Pol aliens

Team Pol gets Maint hive. 2Ram opens with a weird mine pack push to CC nodes, but the opening turns out to be inefficient. At 2 minutes the marines still have 2 nodes while they've dealt virtually no damage to alien economy. They also lose 4 marines far in the map, which results in inexistant map control. From that point on the aliens have a sizeable advantage and 2Ram doesn't do much to upset the balance. Extra alien nodes, fade and second hive go up without much resistance and the Poles sail into a comfortable victory.

NS_Orbital

Two short and uneventful rounds involving quick spawncamp on Team Pol marine round and a failed SG rush on 2Ram marine round. The Orbital outcome stands as 2-0 to the Poles.

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Week 7 Predictions

Bacillus Premiere League Preds

I haven't really got anything new to say without more matches played, so I'll keep these very brief.

9L vs Danny Est Gros

9L are a definite favourite here. They outskill the Dannyclan quite considerably on individual level and I don't think neither of the teams can overcome the other too strongly on teamwork. Veil should be 9L's map, Orbital gives DeGz a chance to steal a valuable round.

4-0 to 9L.

prostokvashino vs TeaM Fantasy

Two lightweights of the division face each other. I think at least Fantasy still has some motivation left, which doesn't hurt one bit at this point. Otherwise it's really a coin toss between two quite equal teams.

Not having heard anything from prosto in a while, I think Fantasy takes this 3-1. Both rounds in Veil for the Finns.

Saunamen vs CAL-NS

Two teams with big names and quite little results this season. Both teams have seemed rusty on individual skill levels, but Saunamen seems to have preserved a bigger share of their teamwork. The advantage goes to Finns.

3-1 for Sauna. Veil decides a lot.

TrC's Div 2 Preds

New Team vs teampol

Both teams showed some nice domination action last week taking down their opponents 4-0. New team especially pulled off some nice coordination on orbital aliens (bigroom) by taking down Bi-potent ambush group in matter of seconds. Rest of the match was practical overrun last nail to the coffin was when pira got his fade out. Although the match was prolonged the winner was clear all along.

Teampol took down 2RAM last week it was not achieved without tears and blood though. Poor positioning and situation awareness cost teampol their first attempt at taking down the resource towers in eclipse. 2RAM was doing fine until they dropped second hive which lead into a difficult position where lerk had to sacrifice himself. Death of lerk opened marines chance to push in and fade was not enough to push the marines back and they managed to take down the hive. Map control did not waver from marines this point forward.

3-1 to New Team

250 de ping vs Stray Dogs

250 de ping has been the dominate force in div2 that Stray dogs were couple seasons back. Throughout the season there has been some sloppiness but it may have come to an stop as there are the last two matches remaining. The next match against Stray dogs could potentially guarantee position in the finals but Stray dog aliens are hard to break, 2-2 just might be enough but to be on the safe side marine tactics should be revised extra carefully.

Stray dogs still has a decent record though lots of wins but rounds were lost thus the 4rd spot on div2. Regardless Stray dogs have strong alien play and the experience Stray dogs have against high pingers could be consired higher than the rest of EU-div2 teams. Ultimately Stray dogs could be hard to crack and much like 250 de ping this could very well give them the edge they need to compete in finals.

2-2

changin THE METAGAME vs Anonym Anti Anti A.

Both teams were absent last week and both teams and both teams faced excruciating defeat the week before. changin THE METAGAME took a surprising 0-4 against 250 de ping two weeks ago despite their great game against New Team. We shall see whether if such a inconsistency continues as they will be facing a team of less prepareness and skill.

Anonym Anti Anti A's player problems continue throughout the season. Judging from the previous games (the very old ones too) AAAA's game has not improven and it heavily reliant of mercs they use. Tactics unknown, players impaired and complete anarchy has yet to bring a victory but perhaps this time.

2-2

Stray Dogs vs Bi-Potent

Bi-potent faced New Team last week and the result was absolute devastation. Skill difference was a factor of course however not everything can be blamed on that, the placement of base in ec was very questionable and eventually led one skulk to the base near taking down the comm and forcing SG'er back to the base precious time were lost. The game was very chaotic but all Bi-potent really achieved was capping up the maint and that due poor scouting on aliens behalf. Much like eclipse, orbital was chaos aswell Bi-potent managed to stay alive longer than I expected but they never had chance. Alien play consisted lot of "solo" rushes and crazy lerk.

Stray Dogs apparently have two games this week and the missing match from last week. Given the success so far Stray dogs should not have any problem on aliens and marine side should be easier should they decide to go for res / hive control with pgs. Any rush or heavy / agressive attempt are not worth the risk at the moment for Stray dogs since they are not the underdogs this time.

2-2